Discovery of White Sea assemblage fossils from Laurentia
5 affiliations
- 1Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
- 2Division of Paleontology (Invertebrates), American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA
- 3Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- 4Department of Geosciences and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
- 5Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
Abstract
The dawn of animal life is preserved by fossils of the Ediacara Biota, which have been separated into three biotic assemblages: the Avalon, White Sea, and Nama. Geographic and temporal isolation of these faunas leads to uncertainties regarding patterns of change. We report the discovery of unambiguous fossil communities belonging to the White Sea assemblage from the paleocontinent of Laurentia in the Blueflower Formation, Mackenzie Mountains, Canada. Unlike previous localities, sedimentological and geochronological evidence supports an older origin and deeper-water setting for this assemblage, including the oldest motile bilaterians. Fossil communities overlap temporally with the Avalon assemblage and are recognized in similar deep-water paleoenvironments. These results provide support for a hypothesized pattern of offshore origination followed by habitation of shallower environments through time, potentially unique to the early radiation of animals.
Related
- Insights into Atlantic-Pacific divergence in Arbacia (Echinoidea) using revised systematics of Neogene fossils from the Caribbean and southeastern United States
- Community-level impacts of low-level diesel exposure on a natural cold-temperate/subarctic phytoplankton assemblage
- New data on the gorgonopsian Aelurognathus tigriceps from the Daptocephalus Assemblage Zone (Karoo Basin, South Africa) with novel insights into the pelvic girdle, hind limbs and tail
- Phylogenetic characterization of the bacterial assemblage associated with mucous secretions of the hydrothermal vent polychaete Paralvinella palmiformis
- Global assemblage stability is driven by asynchrony shaped by environmental heterogeneity
BibTeX
@article{evans2026discovery,
title = {{Discovery of White Sea assemblage fossils from Laurentia}},
author = {Scott D. Evans and Erik A. Sperling and Kimberly Lau and Justin V. Strauss},
journal = {Science Advances},
year = {2026},
month = may,
doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aed9916},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aed9916},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Discovery of White Sea assemblage fossils from Laurentia
AU - Scott D. Evans
AU - Erik A. Sperling
AU - Kimberly Lau
AU - Justin V. Strauss
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/05/20
JO - Science Advances
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aed9916
UR - https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aed9916
AB - The dawn of animal life is preserved by fossils of the Ediacara Biota, which have been separated into three biotic assemblages: the Avalon, White Sea, and Nama. Geographic and temporal isolation of these faunas leads to uncertainties regarding patterns of change. We report the discovery of unambiguous fossil communities belonging to the White Sea assemblage from the paleocontinent of Laurentia in the Blueflower Formation, Mackenzie Mountains, Canada. Unlike previous localities, sedimentological and geochronological evidence supports an older origin and deeper-water setting for this assemblage, including the oldest motile bilaterians. Fossil communities overlap temporally with the Avalon assemblage and are recognized in similar deep-water paleoenvironments. These results provide support for a hypothesized pattern of offshore origination followed by habitation of shallower environments through time, potentially unique to the early radiation of animals.
SN - 2375-2548
ER -